ROUTER X ATSS X Rethinking Democracy: Forum on Youth Poverty and their Weariness Feeling

2019-03-08

ROUTER X ATSS X Rethinking Democracy
Forum on Youth Poverty and their Weariness Feeling
 
Time / Date: 9:40-17:20, March 8, 2019
Venue: Room 310, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, Hsin Chu, Taiwan

Organizers: ROUTER: A Journal of Cultural Studies, Association of Taiwan Social Studies, Rethinking Democracy (New Internationalism & Coolloud)
Co-organizers: International Institute for Cultural Studies at National Chiao Tung University (TBC), Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies (Taishe), The Institute for Social Development and Policy Research at Seoul National University (TBC)

To attend the meeting, please fill out the form: 

About:
The economic development of Capitalism has reached its limit since the financial crisis in 2008 when various political, economic and social conflicts have also increased to produce tension across generations.  Along with the high-rise housing rents and living expenses, flexible and poor working condition brings poverty and precarity to the foreground and manifested in the discourse of youth melancholy and anxiety.  The “BOMB generation” (the generation of collapse) in 2011 describes the growing economic inequality and deficit and the crisis of social welfare systems.  The “little assured happiness”—that focuses on the enjoyment and happiness on small things right now—thus responds to the lack of happiness elsewhere: there is no longer guarantee on future success after years of hard work, contrary to what the neoliberalist myth always tells.  “Feeling weary” and the “generation of weariness”, the other side of the “little assured happiness”, indicates such no-future emotion and working poor condition.  Such a weary feeling also reflects Taiwan’s political and economic predicaments and its searching for its own position in the international society.  The forum would like to understand the weary feeling, its political imagination and the youth culture from the politics of emotion.  It invites perspectives from China, Korea and Hong Kong to shed light on the issue in the regional context.  In addition, the forum seeks to analyze the political and economic condition behind the cultural phenomenon of “feeling weary” and look into the issue of class in povertization and precarious living condition of youth today.
 
Agenda:

Time / Topic	Panelists
9:40-11:40 The Politics of the Weariness Feeling and Youth Culture	Moderator: Tunghung HO (Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Fu Jen University) Discussants: Chih-Ming WANG (Associate Research Fellow, Institute of  European and American Studies, Academia Sinica): Weariness: The Politics of Affect among Young Taiwanese Chih-Chi CHANG (Reporter, Coolloud): Poetry about ‘Weariness’ by Young Taiwanese Poets Shuo-Yuan HSIEH (No-nonsense Collective): The Weary Generation, Rock, and Youth Rebellion Culture Xu Tao LI (Postgraduate, Department of Cultural Studies, Shanghai University): “Sang” Culture in China and the formation of Youth Political Subject
13:00-15:00 There is No Future: The Politics of Hope and Weariness	Moderator: Chih-Ming WANG (Associate Research Fellow, Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica) Disucssants: Keng-Liang CHENG (Editor, New Internationalism & Taishe): There is No Future: The Generation of “Weariness” and its Discourse Xiaoming LUO (Associate Professor, Department of Cultural Studies, Shanghai University): Look at their Future on the Sidelines: Youth Position in the Sci-Fi Fictions TSANG Chung Kin (PhD, Department of Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill): House Buying as Hope Mechanism in Hong Kong Yunjeong JOO (Research Fellow, ISDPR, Seoul National University): Affect of Korean Dirt Spoon among Elite Youths
15:20-17:20 Who Feels Weary? Rethinking Class in Povertization	Moderator: Shenjing LIN (Chief Editor, New Internationalism) Discussants: Chungchen CHEN (Postgraduate, Graduate Institute for Social Transformation Studies, Shih Hsin University): The Representation of Youth Poverty in Taiwan after the year 2008 Zackary Zong-Kun CHANG (Postgraduate, Institute for Labor Research, National Chengchi University): Youth Povertization from the Political Economy Perspective Por-Yee LIN (Director of Organization, Taiwan Higher Education Union): Who is the Working Class? Proletarianization of Youth in Higher Education Yuhui TAI (Assistant Professor, Department of Communication and Technology, National Chao Tung University): Taipei Hermit Crab: Taipei Homeless People Living without Place

※10mins for moderator; 20mins for discussants; 30mins for QA.  Live broadcasting on Coolloud’s Facebook
※Language: Mandarin
※All contents will be respectively collected in “Forum” in Router: A Journal of Cultural Studies and “Left Dissonances” in Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies (Both TSSCI) and others (TBC).  

---